The present disclosure relates to the Information Technology (IT) field. More specifically, this disclosure relates to the control of the usage of software programs on mobile computing devices.
Mobile computing devices (or simply mobile devices) have become more and more popular in recent years, especially thanks to the widespread diffusion of smart-phones and tablets. The mobile devices make many activities substantially ubiquitous, since they may be used almost everywhere; particularly, users of the mobile devices may run a number of mobile software applications, also known as (mobile) apps. The apps are software programs that are specifically designed to run on the mobile devices. For this purpose, the apps are relatively thin (to cope with computing/supply power constraints of the mobile devices), simple (to cope with small screens of the mobile devices) and fast (to cope with reduced attention of the users in mobility); conversely, the apps may exploit specific features that are typically available on the mobile devices (for example, GPS receivers, cameras, accelerometers). User demand and development facility have caused an explosion of the number and variety of the apps (for example, for information retrieval, e-commerce, multi-media playing, games).
The usage of the apps (like any other software programs) may require the compliance with specific limitations (for example, available license entitlements, allowed resource consumptions); however, the control of the usage of the apps on the mobile devices may be quite challenging.
For this purpose, for example, online stores are provided to browse available apps (for example, for a specific operating system), view information about them (comprising user's reviews and ratings) and download selected apps. Some stores also offer a licensing service which may be used to enforce licensing policies for the apps that are downloaded from them; particularly, an app may query a licensing server to verify whether it is correctly licensed for use on the mobile device wherein it is installed, in order to enable or disable its use accordingly (for example, with the use of the app that is enabled only when a user of the mobile device is a recorded purchaser of the app).